A Difficult Decision
by idsaveyouinaheartbeat
Summary: One-shot prompt: Klaus leaves Caroline. AU/AH


**Hi there! So I've been wanting to try my hand at drabble prompts and a friend on Twitter suggested I write an angsty drabble about Klaus leaving Caroline. Now, I couldn't think of many situations where Klaus would willingly leave Caroline - other than the obvious_ to protect her from his enemies_ and I didn't want to do that so this was the only thing I could think of.**

**And this turned out to be more of a one shot than a simple drabble. Oops.**

**I hope you enjoy :)**

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Klaus is sitting in his study with his head in his hands, trying to pin point the exact moment where everything went wrong.

He and Caroline have been married for a few years now and in the beginning it was amazing. It was everything he ever imagined being married to the love of his life would be.

They were happy, blissfully so.

And now they're not. At least he isn't.

Ever since Caroline got a job offer and they moved house to Los Angeles things changed.

Caroline became more devoted to her work and he struggled to find it.

He had his dream job back in New York; he made art and sold it to people who genuinely enjoyed and connected to his work. He co-owned a gallery with an old friend, Marcel, who ran the business side of things.

But he gave that up for Caroline. He told himself that's what you do when you're married, you make sacrifices and you compromise. He constantly told himself that he would find work in LA and all would be well.

Well, he hasn't found work and all isn't well.

And to add insult to injury, Caroline is so happy and content with her new job that she is completely oblivious to his unhappiness.

He's drawn out of his rather depressing thoughts by the sound of the apartment door closing.

"Klaus? Where are you?" Caroline's voice rang through the apartment and the fact that she expects him to be sitting at home and not working only furthers his annoyance.

"In the study." He momentarily stills at how foreign his voice sounds to him.

A few moments later Caroline practically prances into the room and plops herself on the armchair across from the sofa he was tensely sitting on.

"How was your day love?" He hears himself ask.

She smiles brightly at him, "It was great! I had-"

"Of course it was…" he mumbles under his breath causing her to pause mid-sentence.

Her eyebrows draw together, "What's that supposed to mean?"

He sighs, "Of course while I'm sitting at home desperately trying to find a job doing what I love, you're having a grand ol' time at your new perfect job."

Caroline's eyes widened at the bitterness in his words.

"You're going to find a job here Klaus, it's just taking some time." She tries to reassure him as she gets up to sit next to him.

He sees her trying to comfort him and he heard the soothing voice she used – one you would use when you're trying to talk down a child - and it only had the opposite affect and he moves off the couch, putting more distance between them.

"'You'll find a job' that's what you said months ago when I gave up my dream job to move here." He states while running his fingers through his hair.

"So that's what this about? You're upset about your old job so you're taking it out on me?" She asks, pressing her lips together in annoyance.

He laughs humorlessly, "Considering you're the one I gave up my job for its fitting."

She blinks a few times and shakes her head, "You said you wouldn't resent me for that."

"Well I lied!" He yells, louder than he meant to.

Caroline flinches at the sudden sound and bites her lip as she tries to understand what was happening.

"If you didn't want to move here why didn't you say so?" she asks in a quiet voice as she avoids his eyes – something she does when she's hurt or feeling insecure.

"You were so excited about the job offer and I just wanted you to be happy." He sighs again, suddenly very exhausted. "I knew I'd miss my old job but I didn't think it would be like this, I didn't think I'd be so…" he trails off.

"So…" she asks hesitantly, fidgeting with her hands.

"Miserable." He finishes, feeling a weight lift from his shoulders now that he's admitted it.

His relief is short lived when he sees Caroline look as if she's about to cry. He doesn't want to hurt her but he can't see this conversation going a way that doesn't end up with one or both of them in tears.

"Are you unhappy here or are you unhappy with me?" her voice shakes and she blinks a few times to clear her eyes of the tears that were about to fall.

Klaus shifts but doesn't answer her because he finds that he honestly doesn't the answer anymore.

His silence hits her like a slap in the face and punch to the gut all wrapped in one.

The tears she was holding back fall and quiet sob escapes her.

"I was so preoccupied with making sure you were happy that I neglected my own happiness and a marriage shouldn't be like that Caroline." Klaus says in a restrained voice, trying to keep it together.

She sniffs and wipes her cheeks, "Do you want us to move back to New York? Will that make you happy? Just tell me and I'll make the calls, just tell me how to fix this." She pleads with him.

He shakes his head, "No Caroline, it's not that simple."

She frantically shakes her head, "Of course it is!" She walks over to him and places her hands on his cheeks, "You're not happy here so we go back to New York, simple." She tries to smile but finds it incredible hard to manage even a small smile while everything was suddenly falling apart.

He closes his eyes when she touches his face and his hands automatically go to her waist. When he opens his eyes she sees the tears in them and feels her heart drop a little.

He sighs, "Caroline… I'm going to go back to New York… and you're going to stay here." He tells her, his voice just above a whisper.

Her tears came back full force at his words and she clutches onto the collar of his shirt. "No… no we're married, you don't just leave when you're married…" she suddenly has a terrifying thought that makes her tense in his arms. "You… you don't want to divorce me, do you?" she asks and her bottom lip wobbles as she turns her attention to the collar of his shirt that her hands are fiddling with.

He runs his hands along her sides and back to try to comfort her, despite the fact that seeing how broken she looks makes him wish the ground would swallow him for putting that look on her face. He tenses when she brought up divorce because the thought did cross his mind, but the moment it did he banished it because divorce is too final, too drastic. This is just a rough patch, a _very_ rough patch that they will get through.

Or at least he hopes they will.

He needs them to.

He brings his hand up to caress her cheek and is happy that despite the distress he is causing her she still leans into his touch. He gently nudges her to look at him before he speaks again.

"No sweetheart, not divorce… never divorce."

Her brows furrow as her tears continue to flow, "You don't want to divorce me but you still want to leave me? I don't understand… how can we fix this if you leave?" she manages to get out through her tears and sniffles.

He gives a sad shrug and wipes her tears with his thumb, "I've lost a bit of myself while being here and I need to find it again. I fully know that you make me happy but I need some time for myself right now and to think about things." He tries to explain his thought process as best as he can.

Caroline doesn't understand.

She doesn't understand any of it.

She shakes her head again, "No you can't just leave… what am I supposed to do while you're gone? You can't just… leave… please." She pleads as a few sobs escape her and she grips him even tighter.

It feels like every word that falls from her mouth and every tear that falls from her eyes wrap themselves around him in a desperate attempt to chain him where he stands. And he feels like the tiniest bug on the bottom of someone's shoe when he forces himself to not focus on them because he knows he would stay and fall at her feet if he did.

"You'll do what you do best, you'll get through it. I don't know how long I'll be gone and when I do come back I won't expect you to be waiting for me, but I hope you will be. I really hope you will wait for me." A few tears of his own fall at his admission.

Sobs wrack her body then and she's hit with the reality – he's really leaving her.

"Please… please Klaus… we can move together… I can find another job… it's not a big deal… I'd rather lose my… job than lose you… please don't do this…" Her words are cut off every few moments by her sobs and Klaus almost doesn't catch what she's saying because her voice is so muffled by her tears.

She throws her arms around his neck and embraces him so tightly that she nearly knocks the wind out of him for a second.

He's about to speak when he hears her mumble "please don't leave me" into his neck and he has to take a deep breath to keep himself from breaking down at the sound of the hopeless desperation in her voice.

He savors her embrace for a few moments before pulling away only enough to rest his forehead against hers, and then it's his turn to plead, "Please don't make this harder than it already is."

"If it's so hard then don't do it, just stay or let me come with you." She mumbles quietly.

He kisses her forehead, "I told you sweetheart, I need to do this. But just know that walking away from you is the hardest thing I'll ever have to do." _And probably something I'll come to regret_, he adds in his head.

He gently pulls himself away from her, grabs his jacket from where he left it on the back of the couch and walks to the door. He pauses and turns to his wife - who hasn't moved or turned around since he walked away - says; "I love you, I'll always love you" and walks out of the study.

The minute the door to the study closes Caroline loses any shred of self-control she had managed to keep during that entire conversation and collapses onto the floor and cries harder than she ever remembers crying, and she doesn't stop until she eventually exhausts herself and falls into a restless sleep.

Klaus hears her the minute she hits the floor as he makes his way through their apartment to the front door, and he tries his hardest to keep his feet from turning around and running back to her. He feels his heart break with every sob that echoes through the apartment.

He keeps himself composed as he shuts the apartment door behind him and walks down the hall to the elevator.

A few minutes into the elevator ride he pushes the stop button and starts pacing across the tiny space of the elevator. He pulls at his shirt sleeves and tugs on his hair but when he catches a glimpse of his wedding band he loses it. He slams his fist into the elevator wall three times before he rests his head against the wall and his body shakes as his tears fall.

The throbbing in his hand and chest are mocking him.

And he has no one to blame but himself.

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**And there you have it.**

**I originally planned to make him give her divorce papers but I thought it was a bit much for the situation. I apologize if this is unrealistic but my knowledge on marriages and what have you is severely lacking. I feel like Klaus may have overreacted a bit but I'm not sure, so I just went with it.**

**I hope you enjoyed it and if you want, leave a review with a KC prompt and I'll try my best to fill them. If anyone does, who knows, maybe this will turn into a series of random one shots :)**

**P.S. If you didn't already know, the Klaroline fandom has been making worldwide trends on Twitter for 13 days in a row now, and we need one more day to break our previous record of 13 days! How insane is that? This fandom is amazing and I adore you all xoxo.**


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